Two days and some change left until NaNoWriMo kicks off.
Remember last Wednesday when I mentioned not knowing a whole lot about the plot? I know only slightly more now. I was off the last five days but spent most of that time hanging with my lovely girlfriend. Time well spent but not all that useful for novelling purposes. I did figure out how I'm going to work the time travel a bit more, if that counts for anything.
One concept I know I'm going to use is that frequent time travelers adopt aliases so that their enemies can't easily travel back in time and stop them from being born. In a way, it's similar to how wizards don't reveal their true names in fantasy stories. I wish I could claim full credit for the concept but I nicked it from the DC comics character Rip Hunter, Timemaster.
I'm a little uneasy about the particulars of the plot but I'm pretty sure I'll find the way once I start writing.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Seven More Days
Seven more days until NaNoWriMo. How prepared am I? Not as prepared as I would like to be. It seems I've focused more on my main character's back story than the actual plot. I've got the plot broadly figure out but the devil is in the details, as they say.
Since the main characters travel to five or six points in time, I'm thinking about structuring the plot like it's five or six Doctor Who episodes, complete with titles and different menaces in each.
It's always amazing how things evolve in the planning process. Tommy Anomaly was conceived as a Doctor Who knockoff and has grown into a combination of Doctor Who, Captain Jack Harkness, and Han Solo. I'm a lot more excited about the character than when I started planning and think I have a pretty good handle on him.
In non-writing news, the tidal wave of free books I was hoping for after the Forbes article about Goodreads has yet to reach the land.
Since the main characters travel to five or six points in time, I'm thinking about structuring the plot like it's five or six Doctor Who episodes, complete with titles and different menaces in each.
It's always amazing how things evolve in the planning process. Tommy Anomaly was conceived as a Doctor Who knockoff and has grown into a combination of Doctor Who, Captain Jack Harkness, and Han Solo. I'm a lot more excited about the character than when I started planning and think I have a pretty good handle on him.
In non-writing news, the tidal wave of free books I was hoping for after the Forbes article about Goodreads has yet to reach the land.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Monday, October 15, 2012
16 Days Left
Wow. Before you know it, we'll be down to single digits. After that, we'll be counting words. After that comes Thanksgiving, Christmas, death, etc.
Concepts are coming together in what I'm still calling Chronomaly. I've got a much better handle on my lead character's look and personality, due in part to me watching quite a few episodes of Doctor Who and Torchwood over the weekend. The plot and supporting cast still needs work but that's what the next two weeks are for. I've spent a fair bit of time thinking about the steampunky 1920's timeline where Tommy originates from so I figure I'll have to have my characters visit it for some reason.
One notion I'm going to play with in the story is that events in one timeline have echoes in the others. For instance, the invasion from H.G. Wells's War of the Worlds really happened in Tommy's timeline and contributed to his world's advancement, something the Wells in our reality subconsciously sensed and wrote about.
Another concept I'm going to explore is the Doctor Who/Peter Pan connection I mentioned a few weeks ago. I think Tommy's ruined more than a few people's lives by taking them adventuring in the timestream, not to mention some things he did he's not too proud of when he first got access to time travel technology.
Concepts are coming together in what I'm still calling Chronomaly. I've got a much better handle on my lead character's look and personality, due in part to me watching quite a few episodes of Doctor Who and Torchwood over the weekend. The plot and supporting cast still needs work but that's what the next two weeks are for. I've spent a fair bit of time thinking about the steampunky 1920's timeline where Tommy originates from so I figure I'll have to have my characters visit it for some reason.
One notion I'm going to play with in the story is that events in one timeline have echoes in the others. For instance, the invasion from H.G. Wells's War of the Worlds really happened in Tommy's timeline and contributed to his world's advancement, something the Wells in our reality subconsciously sensed and wrote about.
Another concept I'm going to explore is the Doctor Who/Peter Pan connection I mentioned a few weeks ago. I think Tommy's ruined more than a few people's lives by taking them adventuring in the timestream, not to mention some things he did he's not too proud of when he first got access to time travel technology.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
The tweaked teaser
So now I'm currently calling my NaNoWriMo book Chronomaly. Here's the revised teaser:
Chronal explorer Tommy Anomaly travels to the 21st century to investigate a temporal disturbance, only to have a man steal his time gauntlet and go back in time to prevent his own marriage. With help from the man's perturbed wife, Tommy gets a replacement gauntlet and goes into the timestream to find him. But their temporal journeys have made sinister beings aware of Earth. Can Tommy get his time gauntlet back, defeat invaders from other realities, and save a marriage?
Chronal explorer Tommy Anomaly travels to the 21st century to investigate a temporal disturbance, only to have a man steal his time gauntlet and go back in time to prevent his own marriage. With help from the man's perturbed wife, Tommy gets a replacement gauntlet and goes into the timestream to find him. But their temporal journeys have made sinister beings aware of Earth. Can Tommy get his time gauntlet back, defeat invaders from other realities, and save a marriage?
Twenty-Two Days Left
Twenty-Two Days Left. Here's my NaNoWriMo To-Do List:
- Pick jobs for my married couple and a plausible reason for them to fight on their anniversary. I decided I wanted them to be one of those nauseating couples with names that go together so they are Wesley and Jessica, aka Wes and Jess. I'm excited about making bad things to happen to them.
- Come up with names for other time travelers for Tommy Anomaly to throw around. "That Ross Uroborus is such a pompous ass!"
- Figure out what the hell is actually going to happen. I know Tommy and Jess will initially be tracking Wes down using some photographs from key events in their lives that they've spotted him in the background in and that the Gruul will be a thorn in their side the entire way.
- I want to throw a third group of characters in the mix but I'm not sure yet. I already know Tommy is part of the Uroborus League, a group of "non-interfering" time travelers. Maybe I'll come up with some kind of steampunky robots that police the time stream.
- If I enjoy the experience of writing Stolen Time (still not crazy about the title), future adventures will involve dinosaurs being set loose in a sleepy midwestern town and time traveling robots from an alternate past.
- The first series of Doctor Who was the deal of the day on the WB website yesterday. I'm never going to be finished watching Doctor Who.
- Read Shada over the last couple days. It's a novel based on some unfilmed Doctor Who scripts by Douglas Adams. It was awesome so I'll be watching the Tom Baker Doctor Who's after I watch all the modern ones and Torchwood
- I really like Torchwood. I'm alternating Torchwood seasons with David Tennant Doctor Who seasons.
Friday, October 5, 2012
27 more days
Here's the teaser for what is still being called Stolen Time:
Chrononaut Tommy Anomaly travels to the 21st century to investigate a temporal disturbance, only to have a man steal his time gauntlet and go back in time to prevent his own marriage. With help from the man's perturbed wife, Tommy gets a replacement gauntlet and goes into the timestream to find him. But their temporal journeys have made something sinister aware of Earth. Can Tommy get his time gauntlet back, defeat some owl creatures from several universes over, and save a marriage?
Chrononaut Tommy Anomaly travels to the 21st century to investigate a temporal disturbance, only to have a man steal his time gauntlet and go back in time to prevent his own marriage. With help from the man's perturbed wife, Tommy gets a replacement gauntlet and goes into the timestream to find him. But their temporal journeys have made something sinister aware of Earth. Can Tommy get his time gauntlet back, defeat some owl creatures from several universes over, and save a marriage?
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